What do you do when you are writing a scene, but can't find a way to describe an object or an action?

Thesaurus time.

Get poetic. Use a metaphor. Use a simile.

Use your magic writer's wand. Turn it into something you can describe.

Do your job. Good writing is hard work.

Go with whatever as a placeholder, and hopefully something good will come to you later.

Brainstorming time. Or if you're like me and have a notebook of ideas, flip through it and see if something inspires you.

I try to avoid such scenes. I describe indescribable things in terms of how they make characters feel.

I love how Tim Burton depicts railings and fences but there's no way to adequately describe them, so I'd say something like "s/he shivered at the sight of the strange fence."

Shrug

Write the shitty version that gets the point across, fix it in editing.

That or I write it out, like, five different times and meld the best parts of each all together. That's usually when I'm describing something that is going to take some space, though.

edited 30th Nov '11 4:59:34 PM by Dec

Go look for help.

Ask someone better than you how they would describe it and go from there. I don't think I've ever come across anything I literally couldn't think how to describe for more than five minutes. My time on it is then more about fine tuning to get the point across int he most efficient and evocative way possible.